"wait for Godot" meaning in English

See wait for Godot in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: waits for Godot [present, singular, third-person], waiting for Godot [participle, present], waited for Godot [participle, past], waited for Godot [past]
Etymology: Refers to the surreal comic play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, in which two tramps engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting "Godot", who never arrives. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} wait for Godot (third-person singular simple present waits for Godot, present participle waiting for Godot, simple past and past participle waited for Godot)
  1. (idiomatic) To wait hopelessly Wikipedia link: Waiting for Godot Tags: idiomatic

Download JSON data for wait for Godot meaning in English (2.0kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Refers to the surreal comic play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, in which two tramps engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting \"Godot\", who never arrives.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "waits for Godot",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waiting for Godot",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waited for Godot",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waited for Godot",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "wait for Godot (third-person singular simple present waits for Godot, present participle waiting for Godot, simple past and past participle waited for Godot)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2000, Susan Estrich, Sex and Power, Riverhead Books, page 96",
          "text": "But waiting for the connection between gender and parenting to be broken is waiting for Godot; pretending that children have no impact on a woman's career is turning the exception into the rule.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1984, Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, page 263",
          "text": "We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another ­– doubtless very different – St. Benedict.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To wait hopelessly"
      ],
      "id": "en-wait_for_Godot-en-verb-APvvieve",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To wait hopelessly"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Waiting for Godot"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "wait for Godot"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Refers to the surreal comic play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, in which two tramps engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting \"Godot\", who never arrives.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "waits for Godot",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waiting for Godot",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waited for Godot",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "waited for Godot",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "wait for Godot (third-person singular simple present waits for Godot, present participle waiting for Godot, simple past and past participle waited for Godot)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English eponyms",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2000, Susan Estrich, Sex and Power, Riverhead Books, page 96",
          "text": "But waiting for the connection between gender and parenting to be broken is waiting for Godot; pretending that children have no impact on a woman's career is turning the exception into the rule.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1984, Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, page 263",
          "text": "We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another ­– doubtless very different – St. Benedict.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To wait hopelessly"
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To wait hopelessly"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Waiting for Godot"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "wait for Godot"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.